Rape of Model Points up Fashion's Dark Side

ByABC News
March 2, 2001, 9:41 PM

March 3 -- Blond, with that in-demand innocent schoolgirl look, a 15-year-old model from Slovenia came to Milan with hopes of gracing magazine covers. Instead, she says she found herself caught up in a circle of partying and drugs and was raped and wound up in a hospital.

The case, coming in the middle of fashion shows in Milan, is the latest scandal involving the dark side of Italy's fashion capital: a not-so-underground world of parties, cocaine, easy sex and of course models.

"This life corresponds to the idea of success these girls have," Silvia Ranzi, a booking agent at Flash Model Management, the agency that hired the girl, said today.

'Abundant Cocaine and Alcohol'

The scandal has evoked the case of Terry Broome, an American model who was convicted of murdering a Milan playboy in 1984. The Broome story was laced with accounts of abundant cocaine and alcohol, and insiders say things have only gotten wilder.

In 1998, a 19-year-old Israeli beauty queen was raped at knifepoint while in Italy to audition for modeling jobs. An Israeli travel agent was convicted in the case.

Prosecutor Marco Ghezzi is seeking the indictment of two Flash Model executives, saying they did not properly look after the young Slovenian model. But many in the fashion industry blamed the girl's father, who brought her to Milan then headed back home after a week.

Representatives of the agency called themselves "victims of fashion-world parasites" and said they could not be expected to replace the girl's parents.

"I wouldn't even leave a 15-year-old girl with nuns," said Beppe Modenese, a founder of Milan fashion week. "Her parents just shouldn't have left her alone."

The girl was first spotted in Slovenia during a modeling casting.

"She was dressed like a schoolgirl: blue suit, white stockings, no heels," recounted Massimo Mandelli, one of the two executives accused in the case. "I thought she had what it takes."

Playboys, Discos and More Cocaine